Marans Thread - breed discussion & pictures are welcome!

[Dearsrock]

It may be short, I don't have a comparision in real life. Here's another pic, Roo 1 and 3. It's so darn hard to get pics, they act like you're gonna shoot them with a gun, not a camera. Is there a measure, say like they should be 10 inches long.... Or X long in comparision to Y? I just don't know how to interpret "long".

Renee
S CA

 

[Wynette]

Renee, no, there isn't an actual number measurement on how long the back should be, unfortuanately!

It's difficult to tell in this picture. In THIS picture, the cock bird to the right appears to be almost squirrel tailed (tail should be at a 45 degree angle - this boy is holding his up way too high in this pic), but it did not appear so in the previous pic. So often it's all in the way they are standing or if they are startled or not.

Walt - thanks so very much for the exaplanation - it was very helpful!

 

[fowlman01]

Quote:
Length of back in chickens is measured from the shoulders to the base of the tail. Pics don't always tell the truth when it comes to length, but usually you can tell if it's back is long or short. As an example. the female in front of the male in the background of this picture has a much longer back than the male and the same male has a longer back than the male in the foreground. The male in the foreground has a tail that is too upright, so that also makes his back look shorter.

Walt

 

[mountaintopchicken]

Hi Marans people! Can I jump in and ask a what-would-you-do question?

I have a line of 100% Bev Davis black coppers.

In a fit of late summer experimentation I bought some black copper hatching eggs from someone else. I wanted to see what some other lines were like.

I hatched out 4 wheaten colored chicks, 6 black copper colored chicks and one weird brown/mahogany colored one. Now every time I take care of these birds I drive myself crazy wondering what to do with them. Do I test mate them to try to get the wheaten out? But of the wheaten chicks, one in more golden and has a little black spot on its head, and there is that weird mahogany colored one, and some of the black copper colored ones have a brownish tinge to their fluff. So there are probably all kinds of weird genes in there.

Would you:

1. Test mate them and try to work with them to untangle the odd genes from them? This will take time, housing and $$$ but be educational from a learning genetics perspective?

2. Eat em, allowing no resources to be diverted from working with my Bev Davis birds that don't have so many problems?

3. Eat all the boys and keep the girls for their brown eggs? Kind of a pain though since I didn't plan on a non-breeding pet marans flock and I might have to build a new small coop for them. This will take time and $$$ away from other projects.

:h What would you do?

 

[pinkchick]

Quote:
I like your #1 boy best out of all 3 of them. He may be a tad to dark but he is the nicest bodied bird overall, IMO.

Really? Interesting! To me, his back is much too short and it appears that his eye color is too light as well....but again, I'm for SURE no expert.

On my monitor the photo appears to look as though it has a blue hue to it...so you may be able to see the eye color much better than I can. I just much prefer the overall type of #1 that's all. This roo reminds me very much of my Bill in type. I've had good results breeding males that are built like this boy is built.

I do like the colors on roo #2. I see his back as long, but too long that it is a problem. He could be of very good use over hens that have very short backs.


Renee~ Yes, too dark as in not enough copper (little to no copper and/or very dark copper), too many melanizers. These are my favorite males to work with.

 

[marquisella]

Quote:
I hope my post didn't come off as vicious. I posted with the intention of educating and I was hoping it was just a bad angle issue with the photo.
I've seen many posts and photos that people have put on here and other sites where they are showing very over feathered birds and bragging out it. Vulture hocks come with extreem feathering so we need to know how to recognize it. I don't always read posts here every day, and I think by the time I saw Don's post, the pictures were gone so I can't comment to that.

This is educational and not meant to hurt anyone's feelings, but I think that cockeral has vulture hocks too. I would need a couple more pics to be certain, but it sure looks like it. In addition it has what the French call "cuffs" which is overfeathering of the feet. The Marans calls for "sparse" feathering in that area.

I have never found Don to be mean in his posts, but he tells it the way he sees it. If a person does not know they have a problem they can't fix it. Vulture hocks are not always stiff as in the sample illustration. That is an extreme example. They are that way in the breeds that are supposed to have vulture hocks, but usually birds that are not supposed to have them have lesser examples of the feathering and it does not look like primary wing feathers. Almost every Dark Brahma bantam has vulture hocks to one degree or another and I have seen it in many other breeds..
BTW: it is not particularly easy to eliminate.

Walt

Walt, thanks for chiming in. Since I'm not a judge or a genetics wiz, I am sometimes not sure if I should say things or not. But I do feel that from the start, people need to be aware of problems that could crop in Marans that if not noticed before breeding could make a huge problem in the future. I was afraid that vulture hocks would be hard to eliminate, that is why I spoke up.

Of course, these things always pop up in our "best birds"

 

[jeremy]

Quote:
Sell the hens as layers and eat the roos. I wouldn't waste time, feed, water and resources with inferior stock.

 

[Wynette]

Sue - YUP! AGREED!

 

[gilavina]

Quote:
I hope my post didn't come off as vicious. I posted with the intention of educating and I was hoping it was just a bad angle issue with the photo.
I've seen many posts and photos that people have put on here and other sites where they are showing very over feathered birds and bragging out it. Vulture hocks come with extreem feathering so we need to know how to recognize it. I don't always read posts here every day, and I think by the time I saw Don's post, the pictures were gone so I can't comment to that.

I didn't feel that way about your post. But I have never seen them on this thread. Some of my birds do have heavily feathered legs, just not vulture hocks. I like them that way and I am not showing. They were breed for egg color and that is why I got them, they are just turning into good looking birds too

DM, Glad to see you back on the thread

 

[marquisella]

Another side note on vulture hocks in Marans, I've only ever seen them in roosters. Interesting, if the females don't get them unless they are bred into the breed, why is that?